Tuesday, February 28, 2012

my love/hate relationship with pinterest

I think I'm obsessed with pinterest...and obviously not blogging since the last time I blogged was November. Part of it is a ridiculously busy winter. We went to California for Christmas which was so much fun and then Hawaii in January and then I found out some HUGE news that I couldn't share but now I can - I'm pregnant! yay!!! So excited. I'm still keeping it from work peeps which is hard since I'm definately showing (so did not realize how much faster that happens with second babies!) so I'm wearing a lot of prints, some poofy shirts and a lot of sweaters but I think I'm going to give up on that soon and tell the world. But because of the whole baby #2 thing, we are looking at moving and pinterest has been helping me design my dream home. I seriously could spend HOURS on that site looking at fantastic ideas on baby rooms, kids area (which is probably the number one thing I want in our new house - a place just for Z), a scrapbooking room (although I think Z's baby album is sitting at him being 3 months old...hmmm), a fitness area and of course the fantastic "command center" in the kitchen. Yep, my dream house is going to be awesome. But I also need to remind myself that we are two twenty-somethings who will be going down to one salary soon (although praise Canada and it's maternity leave, that will be happening much later for me!) and God calls us to be content with what we have and I firmly believe that going into debt for the "dream" is not what He calls us to do. So I also have slow down and maybe stop posting all these pins about my dream house and learn to make due with what we have. Or will have. Because making due or not, I still want to move out of our 2 bedroom condo in something bigger and somewhere not having condo fees. But I also know that I may not have the dream house right now, but really, I'm 24 - do I need the dream house? My parents have 4 kids in a trailer and barely had money for groceries when they were in their twenties - why do I think I deserve so much more? I think one of the problems with our culture is entitlement, we all think we deserve what our parents have but we forget that it took them thirty years to get there, we want it when we graduate from high school.One of the big things I want to work in my life is budgetting. Now Mike and I have very little debt, except due to me deciding to not stop at a red light, we had to buy a new vehicle so we do have a small loan for that but thats it. We pay off our credit card every month and we have auto payments set up so we can pay off our loan before Beta (aka Baby #2) comes. Because of that, it's easy to think we're good with money. But we're not. We never spend more than we make which is good but we always manage to never save what we should...or worse, forget to tithe and then just spend that money. We spend the money for the Church, for God on new clothes and eating out. How is that good budgetting? How is that being wise with what God has given us? It's not. It's being unthankful and selfish with our money and I don't want that. I don't want my son to think it's okay to "forget" to tithe and then just not have any money at the end of the month. I don't want that to be a precident in my life. I think we're doing great because we still have $500 in our account so I go to pinterest and see this great pair of boots or this amazing idea for the house and I think, we can afford that, I deserve that and whoops, there goes my money for God. It's not okay. I need to make sure thats not okay.So my goal for March is to only look for recipes on pinterest, just ignore stuff for the house, ignore the cute outfits and ignore the "dream" renos. If I can't do that, then I have to ignore pinterest because I need to make sure I start being less selfish and start really appreciating all the blessings that God has given to me. I have a beautiful condo, I have a fantastic husband (who cooks, cleans and puts up with his exhausted pregnant wife going to bed at 7:30 every night!), I have a hilarious precious little boy and my body is currently growing a miracle. My life is good. It's time I start being thankful for that. I don't need a big beautiful house with a separate room for all my junk, I don't need professional maternity or newborn photos, I don't need all that stuff, I have everything I need.